Tips for smallest possible user profile

[MrJDH]

Hello all,

 

I'm in the process of trying to squeeze down the size of the default user profile, for a Windows 7 machine. Does anyone have any tips where to start? Just having a quick look, the "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail" folder, is over 14MB in size! Can this go? As it's a core folder (i'm guessing), do I need to do something on a deeper level, to prevent problems?

 

Any replies appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[RichB]

Take a copy of it, delete it see if it still works! Give it a good test. If not revert back, not the most professional answer but it will or will not work.

[MrJDH]

Thanks for the reply! I'll give it a whirl...any other ideas on what could possibly be removed to shrink the overall size of the profile down?

[3s-gtech]

Open up the user hive in regedit, and look at trimming down unnecessary fluff. The entire hive should fit within 1MB.

 

All in, our super mandatory profile is 932KB. That doesn't include redirected Appdata though, which you may or may not want. Logons are sub 20 seconds (timed today!).

Edited December 12, 2012 by 3s-gtech
Changed the profile size again

[gshaw]

Run Windirstat on a copy of the profile folder and you'll soon see where the fat can be trimmed from. Kill the WinMail folder and set the reg key mentioned on here to stop it regenerating at each login.

 

Office templates and similar files are usually common culprits, they rebuild when the apps launch so no need to download it in the profile.

[elsiegee40]

Empty the cache and delete cookies on the browser(s) you use just before saving the profile. It's amazing how much it clears.

 

Redirect everything possible

[SpuffMonkey]

Take out all the Adobe crap!

[MrJDH]

Open up the user hive in regedit, and look at trimming down unnecessary fluff. The entire hive should fit within 1MB.

 

All in, our super mandatory profile is 932KB. That doesn't include redirected Appdata though, which you may or may not want. Logons are sub 20 seconds (timed today!).

 

Wooaah! Can I be extremely cheeky and ask what I should be looking for initially, within the user hive?

Edited December 13, 2012 by MrJDH

[MrJDH]

..kill the WinMail folder and set the reg key mentioned on here to stop it regenerating at each login.

 

Is this somewhere else on the forum..?

[gshaw]

Is this somewhere else on the forum..?

 

Mentioned in this thread

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/97506-analysis-logon-times-how-speed-up.html

 

and confirmed via this link

 

https://wss.psu.edu/CLM/Lists/Windows%207%20Issues/DispForm.aspx?ID=121

 

I wouldn't mess with anything related to Libraries, the WinMail key is the one that causes the slowdown so killing that should speed things up at logon

That registry key stops it re-generating on each logon, to shrink the profile you'll need to remove the matching files from the profile, will be around 14MB on a freshly captured profile

Edited December 13, 2012 by gshaw

[MrJDH]

That's great gshaw. Thanks.

[themightymrp]

Lots of folder redirection and disabling the winmail feature. Our mandatory profiles are 1.04Mb

[MrJDH]

A quick question - why when checking profile sizes within Windows 7, does the system report the size of the profile being much smaller, when logged in with that username? Logging out from that account, and viewing the profile size with an alternative account, suddenly sees a huge increase! Why? Is this anything to do with the fact that Windows cannot necessarily count all of the files in use (and so report the correct size of the profile), when logged in with that particular account? Edited December 14, 2012 by MrJDH

[elsiegee40]

A quick question - why when checking profile sizes within Windows 7, does the system report the size of the profile being much smaller, when logged in with that username? Logging out from that account, and viewing the profile size with an alternative account, suddenly sees a huge increase! Why? Is this anything to do with the fact that Windows cannot necessarily count all of files in use (and so report the correct size of the profile), when logged in with that particular account?

Is stuff being added to the profile at logout?

[MrJDH]

Is stuff being added to the profile at logout?

 

No. When logged in with a particular account, it's profile size is reported as being 3.07MB. When viewing the size of that profile when logged on with an alternative account, it reports as being 19.3MB! Confused! :-/

[elsiegee40]

The size of the profile you need to worry about is the part stored on the server.

 

When that it is combined with all the redirected elements on the local profile, it will vary in size between users.

[MrJDH]

At present, I am referring to user profile sizes on a non-domain joined machine. Currently in the process of creating a default user profile.